Electric cars saved an entire day’s worth of fuel in the US last year – report

The rising popularity of electric cars in the US has reduced the demand for fuel by the equivalent of one whole day, according to a government report.

A study by the US Department of Energy has found the nation’s fleet of electric cars ‘saved’ the equivalent of 1.8 billion litres of fuel last year – an estimated 1.2 days supply for 276 million registered vehicles.

Last year, more than 457,000 electric cars were sold in the US, representing less than 0.05 per cent of the national vehicle fleet.

The Argonne National Laboratory report also found the 1.3 million electric cars had ‘saved’ almost 6 billion litres of fuel since 2010 – one-third of which came from last year alone.

Between 2010 until the end of 2021, it is estimated more than 1.3 million electric vehicles were registered in the US. Across the same period, 186 million new cars were sold in the country, according to Statista.

The report added the average energy consumption by an electric car in the US last year was 3010kWh, or about 48 empty-to-full charges of the Tesla Model 3’s 62.3kWh battery.

According to Kelley Blue Book, the household cost of electricity in the US is approximately $US0.15 ($AU0.22) per kilowatt-hour, meaning the average home-charging cost for an electric car would be close to $US450 ($AU671) per year.

At the time of writing, the average cost of unleaded petrol in the US is $US3.521($AU5.26) per gallon – equivalent to $US0.93 ($AU1.39) a litre.

Based on these figures, the annual price of charging an electric car at home in the US would cost less than purchasing 500 litres of petrol.

In Australia, 23,869 electric vehicles have been sold between January 2022 and the end of October, representing 2.7 per cent of new-car sales so far this year.

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